You may be interested to know that both the airports and HMRC sell this stuff off at auction houses around the country.
At our local commercial auction house, there is a particular section for Airport confiscated & lost items. Stuff that turns up are hundreds of knives, all bundled into lots such as 'swiss army', leatherman etc, booze, perfume etc etc. Same with HMRC - in a seperate section.
So, someone is making a nice packet out of confiscating your perfume, bottle of plonk or forgotten Swiss Army in your holdall.
As the airport is SELLING the stuff off, surely there could be a challenge in law re. compensation?